Love, love, LOVE these beautiful yokai (Japanese Folk Monsters) illustrations by Shigeru Mizuki. Japanese folk tales and urban legends have some of the weirdest monsters you can think of. While us Americans have Bigfoot and Babe the giant Blue Ox, the Japanese have Kasa-obake (phantom possessed umbrellas) and Kappa (turtle-like water sprites with ponds for brains). There's a wacky folk tale for just about everything in Japan. For example, if you look carefully at the moon, the Japanese claim you can see bunnies making rice cakes. Do you ever see candlelights dancing on the edge of a hill? Those are the bobbing lanterns of a family of tanuki (Japanese raccoons) mischievously marching. During the many years I went to Japanese School on Saturdays I would be blown away by the morbid and imaginative folktales of Japan. Stories of a powerful boy growing out of an oversized peach and fighting horned demons on Troll Island (Momotaro)! Horrific tales of wicked old ladies cutting the tongues out of beautiful birds. It's a darn shame I didn't learn any Japanese (gomen!).

When it comes to Japanese Monsters, Shigeru Mizuki is one of the best illustrators. His style is the perfect blend of cartoony and spooky that makes these strange Japanese creatures beautiful and timeless. Mizuki-san is best known for his manga series GeGeGe No Kitaro, a gothic children's adventure comic about a zombie boy whose father was reborn as the child's missing left eyeball (a big eyeball head with a miniature naked human body!). It's a shame we haven't been blessed with an English translation of this fantastic series!

Just in time for Halloween, the wonderful PINK TENTACLE blog uploaded many fabulous illustrations from Yōkai Daizukai an illustrated guide of Japanese folk monsters by Mr. Mizuki. Below I have included 3 of my favorites. For more monsters and descriptions of the monsters below, be sure to check out the original Pink Tentacle blog post!

After weeks of hype and excitement, I went to see WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE this past friday. The verdict? Eh... sincere, ambitious but ultimately falling a little flat. Spike Jonze and his team did a solid job of building the imaginary world of WILD THINGS from the inside out using a logic and sense of honesty that feels like it germinated from the mind of a 10-year-old boy. The nuances to decisions and games played by protaganist, Max, and his furry friends are bound to muster up some long-forgotten memories from childhood. Details like deciding who's gonna play the good guys and the bad guys brings up plenty of old memories (I remember getting punched in the nose when I refused to play the bad guy). Those very details are intended to be understood from a multitude of perspectives. On one hand, Max acts out with little to no awareness of his deeper motivations. On the other, as observer, the audience gets to analyze the different scenarios in an attempt to better understand Max and (hopefully) themselves. It's an interesting experience... and one I'd be very interested to reexperience with a child (will a child enjoy this movie?). But, as an adult, the experience feels far more elusive than I anticipated. Each WILD THING simultaneously represents emotional states and important people in Max's life. The symbolism often feels jumbled and inconclusive. Based on the ho-hum dialogue and the informal performances, it's evident that the confusion a child experiences in making sense of our inconsistent world is integral to the film's identity. I admire the boldness in choosing this form of ambivalence but wish I was given a little more direction. The creatures feel alive. The combination of costumes and CGI faces brings the creatures to life. I was a little disappointed that the world which surrounds them wasn't given the same level of attention (it looks like a slightly spooky camping trip). Overall, WHERE THE WILD THINGS ARE is a sincere bit of film that does exactly what it intends to. I'm just not entirely sure I'm in love with what it accomplishes.